Online help is the stat nav of user assistance
March 20th, 2010 8 Comments
I was at a meeting in Ayr on Thursday. When it finished I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible (Ayr to Edinburgh is about 83 miles).
Naturally, as is my habit, I took the first available wrong turn and very soon found myself driving around an unfamiliar Scottish seaside town in the rain.
This is why I need sat nav. And it struck me, as I was stuck at yet another set of traffic lights, that context-sensitive online help in a software application is like sat nav in a car.
You never notice how badly signposted towns are until you're lost. Then it becomes painfully obvious just how often streets don't have a street sign on them, and how road signs tell you your destination is in one direction at one junction but when you come to the next junction the destination isn't mentioned and you're left to make your best guess. Signs are often only designed for locals - so they indicate how to get to places a few miles away, but they're no use if you want to get out of town and go somewhere else.
This is like software. Poorly designed software is difficult to navigate and often only takes into account the most likely use cases. If you're doing anything even slightly out of the usual, then you're own your own mate!
Without sat nav, when you get lost, you can generally do one of two things:
- Ask an expert
This involves stopping the car and either asking a local, or (usually more reliable) phoning your nearest and dearest and asking him/her to look up Google Maps and work out directions for you. - Look up a map
Again you've got to stop the car. You've also got to keep a road atlas in the car. And you've got to rely on it being up to date.
The software equivalent of 1, without online help in an application, is asking a colleague to help you out. This takes you away from your computer, interrupts someone else's work and requires a patient local expert. There's only so many times you can use this workaround before it gets very irritating for everybody.
The software equivalent of 2 is reading the printed manual. This assumes there is one and it's up to date. Again it disrupts the flow of your work within the application (like stopping the car to dig out the map).
Other similarities between context-sensitive help and sat nav are:
- It should be available when you want it.
- It's got to give you correct information.
- It should tell you only what you need to know.
Verbose online help is about as irritating as a sat nav that keeps telling you to "continue straight on" rather than shutting up until it's time to turn.
Anyway, to finish, here's a Sunday-best picture of Ayr (it wasn't looking like this on Thursday).
Potentially similar posts
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- The four levels of software support – June 2010
- Does online help need an overall structure? – June 2010
- What online help needs is really good search results – June 2010
- About – November 2006
March 23rd, 2010 at 2:11 pm (#)
A satnav is actually an usefull attachment....especially in an unknown town. but it shows not always the shortest way from A to B... as i experienced that weekend in Berlin.
April 9th, 2010 at 10:15 am (#)
My moan is the sort of help file which says
CUSTOMISE - allows you to change various settings yadda yadda
and doesn't say
CUSTOMISE is to be found in the backwater of EDIT - TOOLS - YADDA- CUSTOMISE
April 9th, 2010 at 11:14 am (#)
Yeh, I totally agree. I used to use Cubase to edit audio files. Great software, but the help files were all written with context-sensitive help in mind. So the help system was useless for those times when you thought: "How do I do that thing XYZ that I know I've done before but I can't find in the drop-down menus?" I'd search in the help and find topics for XYZ, explaining what it was (which I already knew), but no mention of how to get to it - because the tech writer assumed I was reading the topic having clicked the Help button on the XYZ dialog box.
It's a common, but very irritating, tech writing mistake.
August 2nd, 2011 at 9:28 am (#)
After I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get four emails with the identical comment. Is there any way you'll be able to remove me from that service? Thanks!
October 6th, 2011 at 9:14 am (#)
@Irina you should try to escape your comment i think afterwards you won´t get mails annymore!!
Thx for upload !! vrey useful Blogging
October 6th, 2011 at 9:15 am (#)
you should try to escape your comment i think afterwards you won´t get mails annymore!!
October 7th, 2011 at 11:58 am (#)
Thanks for uploading. Very nice article its very good.
f tillman I angree if she won´t try to escape her comments she won´t get mails anymore...
October 26th, 2011 at 6:41 pm (#)
I like it to be available whenever I want it. As long as there is an Internet.